Dawn was near. The bright moon had sunk into the western mountains, while the morning sun had yet to rise—it was the darkest hour of the day. Torches burned atop Tree Snake City, campfires rose outside the Mexica camp, and between the two pools of firelight were the Tree Snake warriors sprinting through the shadows.
Telavito gripped his War Club and trod through the night's darkness, leading five hundred elites in a rapid charge! They had conserved their strength and prepared for a long time, and their running speed was astonishingly fast. In only a quarter of an hour, they had reached within two hundred paces of the camp.
"Dree! Dree!"
At this distance, the firelight from the Mexica camp spilled over, and the raiding force could no longer hide. The patrolling Mexica Warrior squad turned pale with shock and immediately blew their conch horns in warning. The shrill sound of the horns instantly echoed through the night sky, jolting every sleeping warrior and militiaman from sweet dreams together, plunging them into a nightmare made real.
"Go!"
Telavito pointed with his War Club, and a squad of twenty men split off at once to strike down the patrolling warriors who had sounded the alarm. Then, without slowing his steps, the brave Cloud Snake Hunter arrived before the Mexica Legion's camp in an instant.
At the outermost edge of the legion camp, there was only a crude ring of fencing and a camp gate hung with war banners. Farther back were the open-air grass shelters of the city-state militias. At the sound of the warning conch horns, clamor had already begun inside the camp. Beneath the firelight before the gate, the Mexica Warriors guarding it forced themselves alert and swiftly gathered. Their faces were full of tension and exhaustion, yet their